Re: [Not-a-picnic: Nel, Lear, Daddy]
Nel wasn't truly shifting the direction of anything. It was all tied together, you see, like a bundle of branches ready to be lit for kindling. "I mean all of us, here. Come now. Don't play the fool. It's never a look that suits anyone well, and I'm so tired unto death of conversations that run in circles and go nowhere." It was a tendency of this town to avoid directness at all costs, and Nel was rather unfond of the tendency.
She didn't watch Lear's approach, because, quite frankly, she didn't need to. Perhaps it was the intimacy of a shared womb, but Leslie would find Lear was quite right: Wherever the triplets were? They still belonged to each other. Not possession, no, but something else, more, and it mattered not that Fen was not in this wood with them. Should he be required, he would arrive. It was, you see, simply how it was.
She reached back and touched Lear's cheek, but she kept her icy, lazy gaze upon Leslie. "Thor is here, as is Sigyn, as is Rae, as is Baldr, as is one called Kratos, who, as you know, has a tendency to kill gods," she said plainly, because, again, that circular nothing drove her to madness, and she was done with it. "I'm asking, Leslie, what you say of the gathering here." She could hardly phrase it more plainly, could she? "I am asking your intentions. I'm allowing you the courtesy of telling me what your position is." This was not Nel asking, just as this was not Lear at her shoulder. There were old names, and she wielded them fearlessly. Why should she fear what she could claim with a snap of her fingers?